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Nutrition and Prostate Health
Adopting a healthier lifestyle, in terms of both diet and exercise, helps keep you healthy at every level. By staying fit, your heart, your muscles and even your prostate are more likely to remain healthy and, in particular, you will reduce your risk of developing many chronic diseases. In fact, data show that overweight men and men with higher cholesterol levels are more susceptible to prostate cancer. For an unknown reason, BPH is also more common in obese men.
Diet
A healthy diet is essential for good health, and the best way to achieve this is to eat moderate quantities of a wide variety of healthy foods. The diet you should privilege combines:
- less fatty foods. Particularly avoid saturated fats, which are found in fatty meats and dairy products, and ‘trans fats’, which are found mostly in margarine and processed baked goods
- more fish and chicken (but not the skin), and less red meat
- plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables - aim for at least five portions a day
- more foods rich in fibre, such as whole wheat bread and grains and less refined flour and rice
- less sugar and salt
- only moderate amounts of tea, coffee and alcohol
- more foods rich in zinc, such as fish, whole grains, peas and beans
Smoking
Smoking impacts every part of the body, including the prostate! Even if smoking does not cause prostate enlargment directly, it may result in bladder and kidney cancer, reduced erections and sexual dysfunction.
Exercise
Regular exercise is essential for good health and plays an important role in reducing the risk of developing many diseases. A recent study in America found that men who undertook 3 hours of vigorous exercise per week were 70% less likely to develop or die from prostate cancer. Exercise also helps us to maintain a healthy body weight, particularly when combined with a healthy diet. The prominent ‘beer belly’ that is so characteristic of overweight men is strongly linked to an increased risk of heart attack and stroke. It therefore makes sense to try to do some moderate physical exercise for at least 30 minutes five times or more a week. Remember that vigorous exercise not only burns off calories as you do it, but also increases the metabolic rate for several hours after the exertion.
Maintaining Prostate Health
All three prostate diseases - prostate cancer, BPH and prostatitis - tend to cause a greater impact on a sufferer’s quality of life than is, in fact, necessary. That the conditions often reach a relatively advanced stage before men seek medical help is often the result of men’s laissez-faire attitude to lower urinary tract symptoms, embarrassment about discussing this area of their anatomy with their doctor, and their general reluctance to undergo regular health checks.
In fact, most prostate diseases eloquently illustrate the ‘stitch in time’ principle. A ‘window of curability’ exists for prostate cancer, but once this is closed, neither surgery nor radiotherapy is likely, ultimately, to be successful. With BPH, several studies have confirmed that there is a level of secondary damage to the bladder, caused by the obstruction, after which complete recovery becomes less likely. And if prostatitis becomes chronic, then repeated and prolonged courses of treatment are often needed.
Men’s attitude towards their health has traditionally been ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. These days, the thinking should be more along the lines of ‘if you look after your body (and particularly your prostate), it has less of a tendency to go wrong’. In prostate health, regular checks allow disease to be detected at a stage when it can generally be resolved, while preventative strategies may reduce some of the risks of disease developing in the first place. It makes good sense to combine these with regular, more general health checks to exclude conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes, and to encourage a healthier lifestyle, particularly with respect to exercise and diet.
Minerals
Zinc is very concentrated in the prostate and is therefore considered the mineral for prostate health. A slight zinc deficiency is common, especially in the elderly. Zinc deficiency may make you more prone to prostate cancer as well as impotence. It is therefore important to include good sources of zinc in your diet, like meat, fish, whole grains and legumes, such as peas and beans. The daily recommended intake for adult men is 11mg of zinc.
Selenium has been shown to reduce the incidence of all cancers, and prostate cancer in particular. It is found in grains, nuts and oily fish. The daily recommended intake for selenium is 55mcg, but levels up to 200mcg are safe and most effective at preventing prostate cancer. Increasing your intake of selenium, even if it currently is adequate, will benefit your prostate in the long term. For example, eating as little as 3 or 4 Brazil nuts every day is an easy way of increasing selenium intake.
Antioxidants
These are thought to protect the body’s cells against cancer-causing substances. The main antioxidants for the prostate, which are found in fruit and vegetables, are vitamins A, C and E, and lycopene, which is found in tomatoes. The two most effective antioxidants at protecting the prostate are vitamin E and lycopene.
Cranberry juice
Urinary tract infections are more common in men with an enlarged prostate gland. In fact, the inability to empty the bladder results in urine stagnating in the bladder, making it prone to infections. While such infections are not life-threatening or significant, they can have a considerable impact on the quality of life. Although more research is needed, drinking one or two glasses of cranberry juice a day does seem to ward off urinary tract infections. Use a sugar-reduced version of the juice to limit sugar and calorie intake, or try supplements if you do not like the taste of cranberry juice.
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